When Barack Obama visits the coastal native village of Kotzebue, Alaska—population 3,200—on Wednesday, he will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit American territory above the Arctic Circle.

Advance word is that the president will use the visit to highlight the urgency of action on climate change. But some conservation groups have decried the message as hypocritical, because it comes just weeks after the Department of the Interior gave Shell Oil the final permit it needed to start drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska’s northwestern coast.

The juxtaposition puts the climate contradictions of the Obama administration in sharp relief. This White House has taken action on fossil fuel use that may result in deep cuts to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—from restrictions on coal-fired power plants and improved automotive fuel efficiency standards to billions of dollars spent on clean energy technologies.

The administration, however, has also promoted an “all of the above” energy policy that includes opening the Arctic Ocean and parts of the Atlantic seaboard to oil and gas extraction.

Whether the president’s climate focus on this trip is impressive or ironic, he couldn’t have picked a better place in the United States to deliver the message, given that climate disruption in Alaska is well under way and already having a global impact.

Here are six reasons why what happens in the Arctic matters to billions of people worldwide.

(Photo: Jason Redmond/Reuters)

1. Oil Drilling

Burning oil and gas extracted from beneath the Arctic Ocean may lead to climate catastrophe. Scientists say that if we have a chance of averting the worst impacts of global warming, most of the world’s remaining untapped fossil fuel must remain underground, including all of what’s buried below the Arctic seafloor.

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